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How it works

Ricochet uses the Tor network to reach your contacts without relying on messaging servers. It creates a hidden service, which is used to rendezvous with your contacts without revealing your location or IP address.

Instead of a username, you get a unique address that looks like ricochet:rs7ce36jsj24ogfw.
Other Ricochet users can use this address to send a contact request - asking to be added to your contacts list.

You can see when your contacts are online, and send them messages (and soon, files!). Your list of contacts is only known to your computer - never exposed to servers or network traffic monitoring.

Everything is encrypted end-to-end, so only the intended recipient can decrypt it, and anonymized, so nobody knows where it’s going and where it came from.

Be careful

Ricochet is an experiment. Security and anonymity are difficult topics, and you should carefully evaluate your risks and exposure with any software.

We’re working on auditing, reviewing, and always improving Ricochet (and we’d love more help). There will be problems. We hope to do better than most, but please, don’t risk your safety any more than necessary.

How to help

Bugs and features should be discussed on the issue tracker. Translations can be contributed on Transifex. Patches are accepted and encouraged on GitHub or by email.